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Day Fifteen: Nourish #NPCAdvent2015

Today’s Prompt: Write about what it means to nourish your soul or someone else’s soul

One of the advantages of posting later in the evening is that I get to see what others have written. Several people have posted about the importance of nourishing oneself before offering nourishment to another. I couldn’t agree more. We have to fill up our cups before we can pour them out. There are many things that nourish my soul these days: meditation, time with friends, writing, hanging out with my boys. Recently the idea of mindfulness has come up a lot in podcasts and articles. People seem to define mindfulness in different ways and offer different ways of cultivating it. For me, it’s the discipline of noticing something beautiful I might have otherwise passed by. It nourishes my soul. The feel of my soft fluffy socks on the carpet, the extra sweet berries, the way the grey sky makes the colors on the leaves more radiant.

I love this photo. It’s a simple plant outside of Clayton’s school. It’s nothing fancy. I walk by it every time I drop him off or pick him up. Yet one day (a grey and dreary day at that!) I noticed it. No Instagram filters, no photoshop. Just a boring plant that was somehow spectacular on a grey day.

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This post is a part of the 25 days of advent writing and photos that I’m doing with my church Northwood Presbyterian Church, San Antonio. For the writing portion, I’ve just set a timer for 20-30 minutes and whatever I have at the end of the time, I post. No editing past the time limit… no worries if there are errors or if I stare at the screen for the first 15 minutes. Giving it a try.